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Millennials Are Causing the U.S. Divorce Rate to Plummet
- clubm8 8y agoTL;DR: Can't get divorced if you never get married
- taeric 8y agoProbably worth bolding that DR.
- monocasa 8y ago> ... the divorce rate as a ratio of divorces to the total number of married women. So, the divorce rate’s decline isn’t a reflection of a decline in marriages.
- seba_dos1 8y agoIt sure still can be. If people who would later divorce stopped getting married (for instance because it's more socially acceptable now to live together without marriage), causing a decline in marriages, divorce rate defined as a ratio of divorces to the total number of married women also gets lower.
- wyldfire 8y ago> ... the divorce rate as a ratio of divorces to the total number of married women. So, the divorce rate’s decline isn’t a reflection of a decline in marriages. Cool that they ruled that out, that was my knee-jerk assumption. > Young people get the credit for fewer divorces because boomers have continued to divorce at unusually high rates, all the way into their 60s and 70s.
- ddebernardy 8y agoIf I'm not mistaking, the rub is almost a footnote at the very end of the article: > They’re living together, and often raising kids together, but deciding not to tie the knot. And studies have shown these cohabiting relationships are less stable [0] than they used to be. [0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4712741/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4712741/
- PurpleBoxDragon 8y agoSo in a way divorce rates are going up if you don't stick to the technical definition of a divorce as the end of a legal status and instead look at the breakup of family unit instead? It seems part a word game because I doubt those looking at the statistics ever really cared much about marriages or divorces for what they represent on a purely legal level, but for their approximation of cohabitation and family status.
- romed 8y agoYeah everybody always skips right over Gen X ... The NYT covered divorce in a better article with a better graph four years ago[1]. The life lesson here is that the things Boomers say are going to happen to other generations are actually going to happen to them instead. They said we were all getting divorced but that was them not us. They said that video games were going to rot our brains but in reality it was them and Fox News, not us and Nintendo. And on and on. 1: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/02/upshot/the-divorce-surge-is-over-but-the-myth-lives-on.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/02/upshot/the-divorce-surge-...
- maxfurman 8y agoWell said.
- naravara 8y agoI think a lot of that stuff wasn't things Boomers worried about so much as things Boomers' parents worried about. And they were right. And then the generation after looked at the results of that and decided to go nowhere near it.
- MisterOctober 8y agoYep! it's funny - I've been feeling some disgust and resentment toward the behavior of my parents' generation for some time, and felt like I was kind of alone in that until I saw Bruce Gibney's recent book [and accompanying NPR interview on] 'Generation of Sociopaths,' which coherently makes it clear that, well, there are other folks who feel the same way.
- Bizarro 8y agoThey said that video games were going to rot our brains but in reality it was them and Fox News.. and MSNBC, CNN, the NYT, and on and on.
- sharkmerry 8y agoThe first chart on that page seems to show that the divorce rate for 2000's is in line with all the other decades at that # years of marriage.
- grigjd3 8y agoI suspect there are a couple issues at play here. Boomers went through a social transition where women started into the workplace in ever greater numbers. They have had a higher divorce rate out of the chaos of that social contract change. Also, waiting for economic stability really can make people more stable emotionally - so simply waiting to get married seems like it can really help there.
- Zelphyr 8y agoThis is kind-of painting with a broad brush here but the social change that the boomer's pushed hasn't been too kind to them. I have several women relatives who were taught by their mothers to stay home and be a good mother and wife (their words). So much so that when they got divorced, they didn't know what to do. They hadn't factored being a single parent into their life plans so they had to quickly and painfully learn things like how to manage finances. I can't help but think that Gen X and Millenials saw/heard what their mothers and grandmothers went through and have chosen to educate themselves and secure their lives before getting married and having children.
- cannonedhamster 8y agoI think you're spot on, but I think that parents of Millenials saw these changes as well and made sure to try to set up their children for a working life regardless of gender. There's still a stigma against stay at home dads though, so while traditionally male gender roles have become more open to women, traditionally female gender roles accepting of men have lagged a bit. It's definitely not a case where equality of opportunity has been reached, however there has been progress and we are still moving forward.
- Retric 8y agoDepends on how they run the statistics. I assume marriages have different rates of divorce based on how old the people and the marriage is. So, a decline in new high risk marriages should influence the rate.
- tomp 8y ago> So, the divorce rate’s decline isn’t a reflection of a decline in marriages. Under some basic assumptions, this could still be. E.g. if couples that have been married longer are more likely to stay married, lower new marriage rate would result in proportionally more old marriages and hence lower divorce rate. E.g. if people are less willing to marry, more of those who marry would be marrying for a "good" reason (i.e. because they're more sure they're compatible, or because they follow a religion where divorce is bad).
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- mulmen 8y agoHow does the work in states that allow same-sex marriage?
- pitt1980 8y ago> ... the divorce rate as a ratio of divorces to the total number of married women. So, the divorce rate’s decline isn’t a reflection of a decline in marriages. That doesn't seem right at all, If the decline in marriages in marriages result in more at risk marriages not happening, this could absolutely be a reflection of a decline in marriages
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoDiscussed once already. Lots of good points made in the comments. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18068003 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18068003
- hiram112 8y agoI'd be interested to see what the rate is if they only counted first marriages. Anecdotally, it seems many of my Boomer-aged relatives who got divorced ended up getting married again (and possibly divorced again). The idea that you must be married to live together is very ingrained in their value system. In contrast, those of my friends in the Gen-X / millennial groups seem to be getting divorced in their first marriage at the same ratio as the older generation, but almost all of them do not especially want to get married again, even if they have found new relationships and even had more children. In other words, is it possible that the serial divorcees of the boomers are skewing the statistics?
- moate 8y agoOutcome is still the same: There are fewer people getting divorced. If the cause is that younger people are less likely to get divorced (which is what these stats are showing, even though that contradicts your anecdotal points) in their first marriage while older people keep getting married and divorced, there's still fewer overall divorces. If it's that younger people are once bitten twice shy as you suggest, then there are still fewer overall divorces.
- MrEfficiency 8y agoAnecdotally, I have seen some disaster marriages and it explains how divorces can happen: >Pregnant shotgun weddings >Knew the person for a few months, moved to stay with them in another state, married and pregnant within 1 year. >Military marriages I imagine these were worse in previous generations. Sex outside of marriage more taboo. I think culturally its become more taboo to get married just to have sex than to live together before marriage.
- make3 8y agogetting married just to have sex is really a brain dead thing to do. Too much risk of horniness affecting the decision instead of it being just about knowing you found someone you expect to be able to spend your life with happily and without drama
- wincy 8y agoYeah since you’re far less likely to get divorced if you’ve never had sex before marriage. Everyone before 1960 was just a complete brain dead idiot and we can learn absolutely nothing at all from our idiot ancestors.
- make3 8y agoSource please on your claim that no sex before marriage leads to longer lasting marriages. That sounds like the kind of thing conservatives would make up without data to back themselves up. Also, even if it were true, longer lasting mariage doesn't mean happy marriage Also I'm talking about nowadays, where people can have sex before marriage without having to become outcasts in their community or risk pregnancy (with protection. there is ofc still a risk, but it's much lower) Getting married just to have sex when you could just have sex and then pick a partner when you really know them & not because you are horny seems like a wiser thing to do
- gooseifer 8y agoNot the original poster, but I've seen it cited before. https://ifstudies.org/blog/counterintuitive-trends-in-the-link-between-premarital-sex-and-marital-stability/ https://ifstudies.org/blog/counterintuitive-trends-in-the-li... Which uses data from the CDC NSFG. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nsfg/nsfg_cycle6.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nsfg/nsfg_cycle6.htm
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- emodendroket 8y agoThe last three paragraphs kind of throw cold water on the hopeful implications. Marriages are more stable because the working class is increasingly living in unstable, informal relationships.
- koboll 8y agoIs that not a good thing, though? Especially for the working class, breaking up via an expensive divorce, after an expensive marriage, seems objectively worse than breaking up a lengthy partnership, for all involved.
- mijamo 8y agoNot if you have kids or any valuable belongings. Then it can become incredibly messy.
- emodendroket 8y agoYeah. Divorce are messy and expensive in part because untangling a long relationship is complicated.
- bilbo0s 8y agoI think his material point was that dealing with custody matters for never married parents is no more, or less, messy than dealing with custody for married parents. So what's the benefit drawn from being married? I can tell you right now, if you go into a family court here in the US believing you will get more access to your children because you were married, you're liable to be disagreeably surprised. Whether married or unmarried, just protect your legal rights as best you can. And, no matter what happens, abide by the judgement of the court. Appeal later if you're upset.
- emodendroket 8y agoCustody maybe. But being married makes a difference when you're trying to end a relationship and you have to break up your shared assets
- pcwalton 8y agoSome people have interpreted this as evidence that millennials are more conservative than they seem, based on the idea that staying married is a conservative value. But I think it's just as easy to see this the other way: if staying married is a conservative value, then getting married in the first place surely is as well, and millennials seem less willing to do that unless they're confident it will work out.
- astura 8y agoWarning: autoplaying video
- sp332 8y agoAlso Gen X. Everyone forgets Gen X though.
- m0llusk 8y agoJust come out and say it: Millenials are killing divorce!
- mistrial9 8y agoin the United States, active marriages are plummeting overall.. in 2016 four-in-ten births were to women who were either solo mothers or living with a nonmarital partner; spanning demographics, geography, race and economics (excluding only the so-called one percent) Source: Pew Research on Marriage and Children
- nradov 8y agoIs the institution of civil marriage still even needed? When a marriage is officially recorded with the county clerk that confers a set of legal benefits and obligations related to child custody, immigration, income taxes, healthcare decisions, etc. But in principle there's no reason those things have to be bundled together. It could all be handled with standardized legal contracts. Even without civil marriage, people who wanted to could still have religious marriage ceremonies and anyone who wanted to could call themselves married. It just wouldn't have any force of law.
- astura 8y agoIt costs somewhere between $20-$200 to get married. ($20-$50 to file the paperwork plus whatever the officiant chooses to charge ($0-$150(?) - mine charged $100). It costs more than that to hire a lawyer to create a series of legal contracts. If you want to make it "file one series of standard contracts together which are stored at the courthouse" then you're just back to civil marriage.
- izacus 8y agoOf course the costs of all the social ritual and expectations around it are orders of magnitude higher. Which might be the main barrier I think.
- throwawaymanbot 8y agoThey are less uptight about things that might break a "traditional" marriage apart... They dont have the money to divorce from what I read about their finances.
- weliketocode 8y agoSeems like the growing expense of marriage combined with lower stigma for being unmarried is the driver here.
- crooked-v 8y agoNow millenials are killing the divorce industry, too? How despicable.